Each morning, Mary Butterfield must rise from bed at 3:30, leave her Brookton home and drive an hour to the Elm Tree Diner in Houlton. But she doesn’t mind.

“I’ve worked here for 19 years,” says the 58-year-old waitress, “and this place is special. The people I’ve gotten to know over the years are like family.”

Brenda and Caleb Bell, who bought the Elm Tree Diner in 1972, hung a sign over the door that reads, “Your home away from home.” And for many of Houlton’s people, especially the senior citizens, the diner has become their dining room away from home.

Seven hundred meals are prepared at the diner each day by 53 part-time and full-time employees. Many Houlton residents eat at least two meals at the diner each day. Some eat all three meals there, often sitting in the same seat they’ve occupied for years.

The Bells’ recipe for success is “just good food,” at reasonable prices, seasoned by friendly waitresses.

Ninety-eight-year-old Roy Thomas is the oldest regular customer of the Elm Tree Diner. Each year, when Roy’s birthday rolls around, the restaurant holds a party for him during business hours. Last winter, at the urging of his family, Thomas reluctantly went south to Florida and quietly celebrated his birthday on foreign soil. That didn’t sit well with him.

“Roy called the Elm Tree Diner from Florida on his birthday,” said Mrs. Bell. “I could tell he was real homesick. He said, `Brenda, I miss my little chickadees at the diner. Don’t forget my birthday party; I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ ”

Thomas isn’t the only one who can’t wait to get to the diner. Every morning the parking lot is full by 6:30, and it stays that way until mid-morning. There is a special closeness between the Elm Tree Diner and the senior citizen community — a closeness that spans the emotions from love to pain.

“A wonderful elderly couple recently passed away. They came in here daily for many years,” said Mrs. Bell. “You can’t help but get attached to people like that. They were like second parents to us. We miss them dearly.”

Jeannie Hill has been cheerfully greeting the Elm Tree devotees at the cash register for 17 years. She is eminently qualified to explain why people come here everyday.

“We are a small community and the diner is a big meeting place. It’s an institution. They’ll read the Bangor Daily News here, but it doesn’t give them all their local news. People here get that over a cup of coffee. News that wouldn’t be that important to the Bangor paper might be real important to us.”

Family reunions are held in the diner as are wedding anniversary parties. The diner, which opened in 1945, has been there for nearly a half century comforting those mourning the loss of a loved one or sharing in the joy of the birth of a couple’s first child.

The Elm Tree waitresses know all of the regulars by first name, and what each wants for breakfast, without asking.

“A regular customer ordered scrambled eggs one day instead of his usual eggs-over-easy,” said Hill. “I knew he made a mistake so I said, `You sure you want scrambled eggs? I’ve never known you to order scrambled eggs in all the years I’ve waited on you.’ He meant to order eggs-over-easy.”

When the restaurant is buzzing in the morning, the waitresses don’t bother tallying the bill until the customer gets to the cash register. Then they ask what you’ve eaten and ring up the bill. “How do you know if I’m not pulling a fast one by not mentioning a donut I had with coffee?” I asked. I was told, “With you, I don’t know, but you’ll have to live with it. The regulars can’t get away with it, anyway, because I know what they’ll eat before they’ve ordered,” Hill said with a chuckle.

Traditional values, such as neighbors helping neighbors, were born in rural America, and it is there that they still flourish. I overheard a young man in the diner this fall, assuring an elderly man about his firewood. The young man promised to be over on Saturday — with his woodsplitter.

As the young man walked past the cash register, my eyes settled on a plain looking cardboard box with a slit on the top. “What is the box for?” I asked the waitress. She replied, “It is to collect donations for our neighbors in need. Money from this box has helped families recover from fires, and senior citizens whose Medicare payments don’t cover all the costs of an operation.”

I stop at the Elm Tree Diner each time I travel to Houlton. Even when I didn’t know anybody there, it seemed as though I did. Last summer, a man sat on a stool next to me. His faded jeans were held up by a worn pair of black suspenders. I nodded at him and he nodded back. He removed his sweaty baseball cap with the words, “Bell’s refrigeration,” and put it on his knee. Trying to be like the friendly natives, I asked, “You been farming?” Expressionless, the man replied, “Oh no, I own this place with my wife.”

There is nothing pretentious about the Elm Tree Diner. It is a microcosm of rural northern Maine life. I stop there because the food replenishes my body and the conversations of locals replenish my faith in community.

Ron Joseph of Waterville is a free-lance writer.